


Mirror Shards

by Leaving_Storybrooke



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 11:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leaving_Storybrooke/pseuds/Leaving_Storybrooke
Summary: Elsa, Ingrid and a crumbling town that looks like it belongs inside of a snow globe is all that Emma knows but when she walks amongst the frozen bodies of the villagers who tore themselves apart, something inside her calls out to them in ways she doesn't understand. AU from Shattered Sight onwards. Cross Posted from Fanfiction.net





	1. Chapter 1

Princesses are not uncommon in Storybrooke. The curse that a dark and evil queen cast 29 long years ago did not discriminate between the rich and the poor, common man and royalty. It took everyone in its path, swirling a purple cloud of anguish over castles and huts alike, leaving few structures spared from its course of destruction. And thus, there was a wide range of people living in the small costal town.

Princess manned the coffee shops, giving scolding beverages to those who once served them, they taught in the school houses or toiled in the factories on large and dirty machines. There new lives so far removed from the world of ball gowns and tiaras that you would not think of such things as once having been not merely common, but staples. And, for the most part, they didn't not miss that life at all. The fake memories of the curse having given most people a sort of affection for their new lives.

No, princesses were not an uncommon thing in Storybrooke but, the death of one could still draw a crowd.


	2. Chapter 2

In all fairness Emma Swan was not just a princess. She was the Savior, destined to break the curse that had tortured the people of Storybrooke for 28 long years. With her blonde curls, signature leather jackets and ask questions later attitude she was like a real life action hero to the people of Storybrooke. She came at a moment of darkness and brought change that even the people who hadn't gotten the chance to meet her could trace back to her and remembered vividly

Emma was always good at leaving without a trace so I guess it made sense that even in death she didn’t leave a body. 

The streets were lined with people. Women clutched their handkerchiefs close to their hearts, only moving them occasionally to wipe away the tears that gather in their eyes. The men wore solemn expressions and swallowed too deeply in an attempt to hold back their emotions.

It was a beautiful ceremony. Brief, but heartfelt. Her family refused to believe she is dead, even when Bo Peep's staff doesn't show a heartbeat. She couldn’t be. She was so young and they never got to say goodbye. 

Hook was despondent. His heartlessness mixed with the loss of Emma rendering him glassy eyed and reluctant to communicate, like a zombie. Everyone attributed his sudden change to grief, no one any bit the wiser about the control Rumpelstiltskin wielded over him. 

Mary Margaret swaddled baby Neal and provided a constant rocking as she held him against her heart. She refused to let him go. Letting go is what cost her her daughter, both times, and she refused to repeat that mistake.

Charming was blank. He sat the entire ceremony looking at his hands. He didn’t cry and he didn’t speak. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum was Henry, whose reaction seemed to purposely contrast his grand fathers. He was all tears. 

In between sobs and gasps of air he delivered a speech about would never forget the first week Emma came to town. Like most kids he knew about Superheroes. He watched the movies and before he got the Story book he spent more time reading Comics then he did on school work. And Emma, with her blonde curls, signature red leather jacket, and destiny to save Storybrooke, was like a character sprung from the pages, sawing down injustices with as much attitude and ease as she had the branches of Regina’s apple tree.   
Regina delivered the final eulogy. 

Nobody asked where Ingrid was.  
\--------  
Bae's death hadn't been like this. Not that he had been able to attend the funeral but he knew it hadn't been the same. The town hadn't stopped. Bae was loved, true. The prince and princess wouldn’t have named their child after him if that had not been the case but things always seemed to work differently for people of his kind. 

At one time he thought Emma was like that too. Like him and Bae, but that quickly changed when the curse was broken and the savior was reunited with her family. It seems nature does triumph over nurture as not even a lifetime of struggle can stop the flow of blue blood in the veins of a monarch.

Royalty weren’t all bad, of course. Belle was an angel. The sweetest and kindest person he had ever had the good fortune to know. Before meeting her he doubted that he would ever fall in love, let alone have anyone return such affection. People in general were annoying and he did not have much patience for them. He couldn’t imagine having that unrestrained admiration for someone that the fools who fell in love felt for their significant other. He certainly hadn’t felt like that about Milah or Cora. True, he enjoyed the company of both women at times but they could be trying, getting along with them was a balancing act and that exhaustion that followed most social interactions was present even in their intimate moments.

It wasn’t like that with Belle. Even her eccentricities were completely charming. Everything she did left him with a sense of wonder and sometimes it felt like she was of a completely different species from the other women he had met for everyone else felt so common and Belle so enchanting. He would protect her life and happiness with everything he had but he knew he could no longer do that in Storybrooke. The town was cursed, not literally, though sometimes he wished it had been in that sense, had that been the case a common true love kiss could fix everything in a moment. But this ran deeper and it was far more insidious. This town was cursed with bad luck and sour memories that would haunt him forever, regardless of how much magic he possessed. 

Banishing Emma into the hat had not been his ideal plan. For all the ways Ms. Swan had disappointed him, she was still the love of his son’s life and the mother of his grandchild. Ideally she would have been spared but desperate times had called for desperate measures and after all, she wasn’t really dead. Not yet. A certain queen of snow and ice could potentially free her if she had the right trade in mind. That is, in fact, why he had come to the forest at all, despite Belle wanting him to stay and help her comfort the Charming’s. 

“Lovely ceremony, wasn’t it?” He said, hearing the snap of small twigs behind him. 

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t invited.”   
“Well, you are trying to kill them.” 

Ingrid walked slowly towards Rumple but did not step when she reached his side. She walked further ahead until she was standing a few steps out of his reach, her back towards him. 

“Ah it may be my curse that is threatening the town but you’re the one responsible for Emma’s disappearance.”

“And so we reach the true reason for our meeting.”

Now she turned to face him. Her eyes were cloudy with tears and her forehead cracked with veins. She was more upset then he had expected and the sight made him smirk.  
Nothing compromised a person’s ability to make decision more than love. 

“I know the hat. I know Emma isn’t dead.. yet. What will it take for you to spare her?” she said in a strained voice. 

“You want to make a deal, dearie? I doubt you have anything I want.”

“You need magic to activate the hat. I can give you that magic.” 

He shook his head. Foolish woman. 

“You’re going to have to do that either way, if you want the savior to live. No, I need something else. I need another exemption from the curse.”

“And who, Dark One, would you want to save?” She had regained her composure and seemed to be crueler in a vain attempt to regain her quickly diminishing authority. Still, he’d tell her, for no other reason than to avoid confusion. 

“My Grandson.”

The decision to save Henry wasn’t one he had given much conscious thought to before he voiced it. His relationship with grandson was complicated. He had always liked the boy, even before the curse broke he had a soft spot for children, especially those that reminded him of his son. Then there was the whole mess with the seer’s prophecy and that complicated his everything and ultimately lead to his demise. Now the boy was working at his store and though he was obviously up to something, it was nice having him around. He was more like Bae then he had realized and the idea of his grandson dying at the hands of one of his cursed relatives was becoming more and more distasteful to him. 

“Emma’s son?” Rumple watched Ingrid consider it. He knew that she was thinking over the ways this could possibly come back to haunt her. “We have a deal, dark one.”


	3. Chapter 3

The fairies were the first to go. A smudge of magic and Ingrid lead them like lambs to the slaughter in to Merlin’s hat. 

The curse of Shattered Sight took snuffed out lights like a terrible pestilence. At first no one was infected, people laughed at the idea, but more and more they turned. It started small, anger growing with every moment passed until fights broke out over minor infractions (She parked in my spot. He ate my pop tart). In a week the first blood was spilt.   
A storm was brewing, a literal one. Ingrid could not risk any survivors. She knew that if even one of them survived they would find a way to ruin the relationship she was curating with her sisters. They would never understand. And she was getting bored. Seeing people rip each other apart held no appeal to her. She wanted her new start and she had waited long enough. The Shattered Sight curse could take months to finish what had started. By the months end anyone still alive would be frozen, a perfect statue in a perfect world.   
Hook’s death was more climactic. A starry night’s sky projected into the clock tower and a bright light which alerted the rest of Storybrooke, if not the world, that a new power had risen. 

Meanwhile, Rumple kept his promise. Emma was returned unharmed and like Elsa, she was placed in a death like sleep to be awoken with fresh memories and new perspective when she was ready. 

Belle and Henry were in a similar state, tucked away in Rumple’s Cadillac ready to leave Storybrooke in the light of the next morning. And Rumple spent his last night in Storybrooke at the grave of his son, promising to do better with this next fresh start.

When morning came he left Storybrooke with no intention of ever returning.   
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Ingrid’s perfect world came to be with a fresh coat of snow, blanketing the town a giving the women the fresh beginning that she had dreamed of for years.

For Ingrid, nothing was better than a snow fall. It draped itself around the town like a blanket, and filled her bones with warmth. The blood stained streets were hidden away and everything around her finally looked as clean and orderly and simple as she wanted it to be.

She was careful as she filed through the memories of her sisters. She didn’t want them to be changed. She did truly love them as they were, but she had to assure that her feelings were returned and that there were not any stray memories or lingering sense of rejection or kinship to another family that could get in the way of their perfect family.   
Elsa was easy. The poor girl had spent so much time alone that not much had to be trifled with. Her memories could stay almost identical, only removing the unfortunate end to their first meeting, and their relationship would be perfect. 

After much deliberation, Ingrid chose to not completely remove the memory of Anna. Sisterhood, even between the special and the ordinary, was a bond she respected. Ingrid had loved her other sisters, her blood sisters, dearly and even after their betrayal she could not bring herself to forget them by either magic or even the natural passage of time. She revisited the memories regularly, swallowing the pain for moments at a time so that she could think back fondly on the summer days spent flying kites and making daisies chains as often as possible. 

Yes. Elsa would keep the childhood memories of building snow men and play fights and giggling fits in the safety of the crevices of her mind.

Emma. Sweet Emma. She was such a different story. So many of her memories had to be erased or downplayed to get her ready and Ingrid felt very guilty about doing so. Leading a person to their death was one thing. It was quick and often there was some action or inaction that could be interpreted as a willing embrace, but erasing the mind of someone was such a different experience. It was intrusive and so deceptive. A last resort of a desperate woman. And the new beginning of a bond that would last forever.


	4. Chapter 4

Emma and Elsa spent a lot of time after their awakening in Ingrid’s ice castle. Emma would sit on the balcony and look out at what once was the town of Storybrooke. Now deserted and deteriorating under the constant snow fall, it looked like the inside of a snow globe. Something about the town made Emma feel confused, like something was calling out to her but she could not understand what. 

Neither girl knew how they had come to end up here but they knew they were satisfied and that they always had each other as well, of course, as their eldest sister Ingrid. 

Sometimes, when Ingrid was asleep or otherwise occupied by some magical theory Elsa and Emma would sneak out into the parts of Storybrooke that had yet to crumble completely, where they could walk around the ruins of what they had imagined to be a century old civilization. There they would look at the artifacts and make up stories of the people who used to live there. The girls favorites were of lovers who, made of stardust and sugary sweets, fought destiny and vile villains to find their happy endings in each other’s arms only to meet their demise at the hands of weather crueler then they could ever had anticipated. 

They hoped that their own story would have a better conclusion. 

"Emma, slow down." Elsa said, flinching away from Emma’s cupped hands. 

Emma rolled her eyes and looked at Elsa dubiously. 

"Come on, Ingrid won't see us. We are too far out." 

"You can't promise that and if she does catch us she will be so upset" 

"She'll get over it. In the end, she may end up even loving the idea." 

"Yes, because who wouldn't be happy with their sisters falling in love." 

Elsa’ eyes bulged with guilt. Emma sighed and creeped away from Elsa slightly. She rolled her eyes. 

"Oh don't start with all that sister crap. I love Ingrid and what we have here is a family. It’s..it’s the most accepted I've ever felt in my life but.. we're not sisters. Not really." 

“Don’t say that.”

“Elsa, you had a sister. You’ve told me about Anna can you really look me in the eye and tell me that what we have feels the same as that?”

“Emma..” Elsa said looking down. 

“If you can do that, then maybe…maybe it’s me who is getting it wrong.”

There was a stillness in the air once Emma finished. The two girls looked as each other, both daring the other to say something. Emma too frightened of the coming moment to blink. Elsa smiled softly, tilted her head and kissed Emma’s lips softly. 

“You’re right, Emma.” She whispered as she pulled away. 

That night the girls dared themselves to stay out later and later, knowing that each moment that passed was another moment that Ingrid could come and find them.

First they talked about everything. Everything they remembered from their old lives, everything they felt now, every silly thought that crossed their minds and when they ran out of things to say they began to wonder the town, never straying far from each other. 

Emma was drawn to the center of town more and more. Elsa had initially thought that Emma would keep travelling until she reached the outer limit, but Emma’s desire to explore seemed to die down when she finally reached the decaying Main Street.

It was there that she seemed to truly become bewitched with one of the Frozen villagers. Ingrid had told Emma and Elsa that the people who had occupied this town before the eternal winter had been savages, not much more then animals, but sometimes the poses Emma discovered the people in made it clear that Ingrid was wrong. 

The ice sculpture that currently caught Emma’s attention was of a woman huddled over, her arm protecting something. The woman had pale, white skin and hair as black as coal. She seemed curved into herself and when Emma looked closer she could see that the woman was protecting something. 

“Hey, Elsa, look at this one? It's holding a baby.”

“Yes, Ingrid once told me that whatever tragedy befell these people happened so quickly in its final moments that some are now frozen like that. Forever. Most of the ones I've seen are fighting.”

“This one isn't fighting. It looks like she's scared.” Emma had yet to take her eyes off the woman. There was a familiarity about her that Emma just couldn’t put her finger on. For some reason a part of Emma wanted to cry looking at her, but not just a cry of empathy, but that which follows a deep, personal loss. 

“She never told me that. She doesn't let me come to this part of the land. I sometimes think she doesn't trust me.” Emma muttered, circling around the tragic, mother and baby. 

“Don't say that. She trusts you with her life. She just wants you to train, your powers aren't like ours. You could do so much, you could create food so we wouldn't have to worry about finding food or starting a farm.” 

Elsa reached out to grab Emma’s shoulder, concerned about the way she seemed sudden bewitched by this strange ice statue. She didn’t understand it. Sure, the statues were sad, but Emma had seen many of them before this. They had seen elderly folk Frozen as they had huddled in corners and even children taken mid run, and Emma had never reacted like this. It was like she could not take her eyes off of this one family. 

“Emma?” No answer. 

“EMMA?” She asked again rocking the woman’s shoulder. Emma flinched at the movement causing her to drag her hand against the sharp ice covering the woman. 

She pulled her hand to her chest and turned the palm upwards. Her right ring finger had been pricked and just as a drop of blood was gaining traction, Emma felt her mind becoming over flooded with forgotten memories. She saw a ten year old boy in a pea coat knocking on her door, a woman (the frozen woman in front of her) hugging her closely in the center of a pretty small town, a man talking to her on logs near the ocean, telling her that life was made up of moments. 

She took a deep breath. She knew who she was now. She knew what happened. And she wanted revenge.


	5. Chapter 5

Hell isn't hot. It's cold.

It's Frozen buildings and people and fresh piles of fallen snow that barely covers the icy blue bodies of a whole generation, the last generation, of a displaced society. 

It’s being forced to look into the blank eyes of people you love and seeing the lifelessness that lurks behind them. 

It's the feeling of anger that burns in your chest when one of only two people you thought you could trust stabs you in the back. 

Emma stood up from where she was sitting, pushing Elsa’s hand off her. All the affection the women had shared in the months since Ingrid had taken control of Storybrooke seemed to disappear instantly, leaving Elsa squatting on the ground, alone, confused and scared. 

“Emma, what happened? Please tell me.”

Elsa ran after Emma as the older blonde marched like a soldier out of the town and toward the ice palace the three blondes called home. Emma didn’t even seem to hear Elsa’s pleas let alone see the tears welling in her eyes. 

“Emma wait. Where are you going?” She yelled out, using all her energy to rush toward Emma and grab her arm once more. 

“I’m going to talk to Ingrid. She has a lot to explain.” Emma said tensely, she took in the fear in Elsa’s eyes and softened a little. “She has a lot to explain to both of us, Elsa.”

Emma pulled her arm away from Elsa and backed away from the girl slowly for a moment. With a final look she turned away and began to run towards Ingrid’s ice castle. Elsa remained in the middle of the forest feeling just as lost as ever before. 

But Emma did not have in it in her to focus on Elsa. She had seen her mother’s frozen form and was haunted by the sight. She needed to know if this fate had befallen her entire family and if there was any way that it could be reversed. 

“Ingrid.” She screamed upon entering the palace. “Ingrid, come out here. Now.” 

The pretty, blonde ice queen walked into the foyer looking as composed as ever. She glanced at Emma, her eyes taking in the new slouch posture and the skeptical look hiding behind her eyes. Though physically she was the same woman who had departed from the castle mere hours ago the change In her soul was impossible to miss. 

“Emma, sweetie, what is wrong?” She asked, hiding her knowledge behind a façade of ignorance. 

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You don’t get to ask me that! Not after everything you’ve done.”

“Clam down, Emma. Remember I am your sister, your family. I would never hurt you.”

The words rang through Emma’s head, gathering up more of her anger as they reverberated around her body. It seemed to culminate in her fist, which she slammed at Ingrid’s face. 

“You are not my family. You’re some crazy lady who stole my family and brainwashed me.” Emma said towering over Ingrid’s fallen form. 

“Those people down there weren’t your family. They couldn’t love you, not the real you.” 

“They did love me.” She cried “They loved me so much and you took them away from me. How could you?” She said shaking with tears.

Ingrid pulled herself up from the ground and dusted off her dress. She looked at Emma sympathetically. 

“Oh Emma, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go into the village.” She said putting an arm around Emma and ushering her to a nearby seat. 

“Don’t touch me.” Emma said, jerking away from Ingrid’s touch. 

Ingrid looked down solemnly. 

“Well, I won’t be making that mistake again.” She said, stroking the memory stone in her pocket. She ran her hand against its smooth surface and pulled it free.

Emma’s eyes grew wide. She went to run away from Ingrid but found herself immobilized. 

“Ssshhh! Don’t worry, Emma. Everything will be good again in just a moment.”

Ingrid twirled her finger around the stone as Emma closed her eyes in dread, awaiting the inevitable.

She wondered what it would feel like to lose herself all over again. It would come soon. Any moment now. 

She peaked open her eyes to see what was stopping Ingrid from ripping out her personality only to find that Ingrid’s body was engulfed in ice, leaving only her head free. Behind her stood Elsa, arms still outstretched from the attack. Emma stood up, finding her body free from Ingrid’s hold, and ran to her savior. 

“Elsa, you saved me.” 

“Of course I did. You’re my..my Emma.” 

“I love you, Elsa. I have a lot to work out and I don’t know what the future holds but I want you to know that.” 

“I know. I love you too.” She said placing a soft kiss on Emma’s lips. 

Both of the blonde women turned to Ingrid.

“Okay, we have questions, Ingrid.” Elsa said, looking at her aunt with distrust. 

“And I will know if you’re lying.” Emma added. 

“What is it that you want to know?” 

“Is there a way to reverse this curse you placed on Storybrooke?” Elsa asked

“No. It..It’s permanent.”

Emma’s heart fell. She let out a screeching cry and balled her fists. 

“So my entire family is dead.” She said through tears. 

“Not your entire family. Your son.. Mr. Gold he..he took him with him. I don’t know where they went, but from what he said I doubt the boy has died.” 

Emma lent down to Ingrid’s face and pulled at her hair, tightly. Ingrid struggled and winced under Emma’s fist.

“You better hope he hasn’t.” She said before knocking the woman’s head against the cold ice and rendering her unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH Definitely the weakest chapter of the series. Beginnings and Ending I like. The middle is always where it is the hardest.


	6. Chapter 6

Emma approached the book store feeling nothing but a cold steely determination in the pit of her stomach. She knew she should be worried. She should care that her hair was a mess, that her clothes were torn and in some places bloody, that the pain in her right leg was forcing her to walk with a prominent limp but the only thing she could bring herself to think about was getting to that book store right now and finding her son.

She could feel the eyes of the other pedestrians on her. Even in the streets of New York City, she managed to gain the concerned glances from passersby. She didn't stop. Her eyes always ahead, looking at the numbers on the buildings trying to find the brownstone and store front that belonged to the Gold's. Belle's Bookshop, it was called.

It was a quaint place. Under other circumstances Emma might to have called it charming but that word now felt like poison on her tongue. Large windows lined the walls, allowing the weather of NYC to act as a backdrop to the shopping and reading and casual coffee drinking of those who patron the store. Overstuffed book shelves filled the room, accompanied by worn but neat furniture and fresh flowers and bakery displays showing puffed up pastries.

It was adorable and sweet and looking in at the shop from the cold street outside filled Emma with her first pang of worry. What if Henry didn't want to leave with her? What if here, in this small book store in the heart of New York, Henry had found a happiness that she could not compete with? She'd given him up once for his best chance. She could do it again now.

Taking a deep breath and unconsciously shaking her head she brushed aside her concerns and entered the store, hearing a slight ringing from a small bell on top of the door. Aside from a middle aged and balding man in a suit and a girls whose head seemed to be engulfed by curly red hair, the store was empty.

Emma glanced around walking closer to the back of the shop where she could hear some quiet chattering and twittering laughter. The conversation sounded comfortable and gave Emma the impression that whoever was talking was in complete harmony with the setting, not at all worried about keeping the hushed reverent tones that the other patrons committed to.

Turning a corner she saw them. Gold and Belle. They were intimately arranged around the register counter. Belle biting her lips and giggling like a school girl as Gold leaned into her face whispering things that made Belles blush brightly. Emma had never seen them like that before. Like lovers.

Otherwise, they were exactly the same. Gold in his designer slim suits and imposing golden cane. Belle with her glossy brown curls and a stack of books beneath her left hand (her right one being preoccupied with stroking Golds arm).

She hated them. Did they even know what happened in Storybrooke? How many people had died? Did they care or were they happy to just move away, with her son, and leave everyone else to suffer under the fist of an emotionally compromised ice Queen.

"Excuse me, Miss, did you need any help?" A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts, pulling her away from visions of the Frozen dead eyes of her friends and neighbors and back into the quaint, warm book store in the heart of New York.

It was deeper, it no longer cracked with puberty, but none the less she'd recognize it anywhere. Henry.

She spun around at full pace, almost tripping over in her rush to see him. He looked the same. Older but the same. His hair in that boyish brown style. His red and grey scarf wrapped around his neck, despite it being pointless in the warm weather. His coat was different, he would have been too big for the one he wore when she last saw him, but the styles were similar.

Emma smiled hopefully at him but wasn't exactly surprised by the lack of recognition and slight look of alarm in his eyes. She knew he didn't recognize her yet but there was already so much she wanted to say to him that she struggled to even open her mouth.

"Oh don't worry about them. They can be kind of gross but I promise they won't do more than kiss in public."

"No.. they're fine." Emma said still staring at her son. She was unnerving him, she knew, but it was hard to talk to him given the circumstance.

"Yeah, they're pretty cool really. Oh uh they're my parents. Well he is my dad and that's my step mom. She's great though, its actually her store, we all help out though."

He shuffled the books he had been holding to his left hand and extended his right towards Emma.

"My name is Bae, by the way."

Emma smiled tensely at that, her eye twitching slightly. Taking Henry with him was one thing. It was kidnapping but it probably saved his life and a large part of Emma was grateful that Rumple had cared enough for Henry to spare him the fate that befell the rest of her family.

But this, this was wrong? Messing with his memories? Renaming him? What the hell was Gold thinking, turning Henry into a replacement for his father? It was exactly what Ingrid had done to Elsa and her and it pissed Emma off. Henry and Emma and Elsa were not blank slates to be replaced and re-written with whatever someone else desired. They were not do overs and this was not fair.

She took her sons hand firmly and, in a voice purposely loud enough to break Gold out of whatever love stupor he and Belle had conjured around themselves, she spoke.

"I'm Emma. Emma Swan".


End file.
